Inditex Executive Chairman Pablo Isla is among the leaders of thirty two fashion sector players who have agreed to form the ‘Fashion Pact’, that will be unveiled at the Élysée Palace in Paris in the presence of the president of France.

The objectives of this coalition are aligned with Inditex’s global sustainability strategy, as outlined at the company’s recent Annual General Meeting, with a focus on fighting climate change, caring for the oceans and preserving biodiversity.

Inditex is one of the 32 signatories of the Fashion Pact initiative, created to champion environmental sustainability in the apparel and fashion sectors, which will be unveiled at the Élysée Palace in Paris at an event convened by French president, Emmanuel Macron. Inditex’s Executive Chairman, Pablo Isla, will participate in this first working session, which also features the French Ministers of the Economy and Environmental Transition, Bruno Le Maire and Elisabeth Borne.

Mr. Isla said that “all of us here at Inditex are committed to sustainability, one of our firm’s core strategic principles. The driving force behind this project is the conviction shared by all signatories about the shared responsibility to protect the world’s environment over the long term”. Inditex’s Executive Chairman reiterated the strategic targets presented at the Annual General Meeting in July, designed to ensure the company plays a leading role in transforming the sustainability of the fashion industry. Among other milestones, Inditex will eliminate the use of plastic bags by 2020 (an objective already achieved at Zara, Zara Home, Massimo Dutti and Uterqüe), and by 2023 it will have eliminated customer-facing single use plastics. By the same date, all waste generated at the Group’s workplaces will be recycled or reused, and, by 2025 100% of the cotton, linen and polyester used by all eight of its brands will be organic, sustainable or recycled.

The Fashion Pact, which includes luxury, fashion, sports and lifestyle brands, as well as retailers and suppliers, is committed to establishing specific quantitative targets for tackling the challenges facing the industry in terms of fighting the climate crisis and protecting biodiversity and the oceans. It will also champion involvement by the signatories in other complementary sector initiatives and foster the development of accelerators in order to help meet the objectives set.

These founding members have pledged to work under the framework of the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi), whose strategy is concentrated on three essential aspects of protecting the Planet:

Halting climate change, specifically focused on achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 with the aim of keeping global warming below 1.5ºC between now and 2100. That implies, among other measures, sustainable raw material extraction and the use of renewable sources of energy in all productive processes with a high impact on the supply chain by 2030.

Restoring biodiversity. In this field the priority is to develop and apply Science-Based Targets designed to protect and restore ecosystems and to take specific action in the supply chain, such as the elimination of raw materials sourced from high impact intensive consumptions.

Protecting the oceans. Some of the measures proposed for protecting the oceans include the elimination of single-use plastics by 2030 and research in the area of microplastics, to be undertaken in parallel with the valuable work already underway by organisations with which Inditex is already collaborating, such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Sustainable Apparel Coalition, Textile Exchange, Better Work and the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) initiatives.